This article -- the first part of a two-part contribution -- considers the current and past state of research on the history of adult education in Britain. Although there has been a broadening of interest among historians of adult education, the field remains to an extent in the shadow of the "Great Tradition" of liberal education…

By repositioning the salonniere as a progressive, feminist educator who employed a constructivist framework to regulate the discourse of the male philosophes who frequented her salon space, this article offers a new vantage point from which to examine her influence on the Enlightenment cause. Feminist historians have insightfully analysed the…

In the closing weeks of 1867, an educational organization was founded in Washington, D.C., that should have been stillborn. Most farmers dismissed scientific agriculture as useless book-farming. They should have been lukewarm to the Patrons of Husbandry's promise to sponsor monthly meetings for mutual instruction in the application of scientific…

Progressive education is often examined through the lens of curricular theorists, educational historians, and the experience of practitioners. One perspective, infrequently found in the debate, has been the experiences of students educated under the progressive philosophy. The Southern author, Flannery O'Connor, who attended progressive schools on…

This position paper addresses some enduring, as well as emerging issues, associated with the crucial question of benchmarking understandings about nature of science (NOS) for precollege science education. The question of benchmarking NOS understandings is revisited in light of the often cited, continuing debates among historians, philosophers, and…

In teacher's idealized history classroom, students are abuzz with questions. They are eager to jump into a serious analysis of primary sources. They relish additional opportunities to engage historiographical debates. They are, as teachers like to say, "thinking historically." While there are few easy ways to create these idealized…

Historians often identify Horace Mann and other middle-class reformers of the mid-nineteenth century as the catalysts of the Common School Movement, the forerunner of today's public school systems. Despite education historians' focus on Mann and his ilk as the original advocates of common schooling, the notion of free universal public education…

How do people use education to respond to change? How do people learn what is expected of "good citizens" in their communities? These questions have long concerned educational historians, civic educators, and social scientists. In recent years, they have captured national attention through high-profile education reform proposals and…

In recent years, critics of the social studies have complained that instead of studying history, elementary and high school students take other social science courses, sex and health education, or driver training. Seeking to explain the origin of that supposed shift, many authors concentrate on the period from 1892 to 1937, arguing that it was…